Before night closed their third day on the island Jenks managed to
construct a roomy tent-house, with a framework of sturdy trees selected
on account of their location. To these he nailed or tied crossbeams of
felled saplings; and the tarpaulins dragged from the beach supplied
roof and walls.
It required the united strength of Iris and himself to
haul into position the heavy sheet that topped the structure, whilst he
was compelled to desist from active building operations in order to
fashion a rough ladder. Without some such contrivance he could not get
the topmost supports adjusted at a sufficient height.
Although the edifice required at least two more days of hard work
before it would be fit for habitation Iris wished to take up her
quarters there immediately. This the sailor would not hear of.
"In the cave," he said, "you are absolutely sheltered from all the
winds that blow or rain that falls. Our villa, however, is painfully
leaky and draughty at present. When asleep, the whole body is relaxed,
and you are then most open to the attacks of cold or fever, in which
case, Miss Deane, I shall be reluctantly obliged to dose you with a
concoction of that tree there."
He pointed to a neighboring cinchona, and Iris naturally asked why he
selected that particular brand.
"Because it is quinine, not made up in nice little tabloids, but au
naturel. It will not be a bad plan if we prepare a strong infusion,
and take a small quantity every morning on the excellent principle that
prevention is better than cure."
The girl laughed.
"Good gracious!" she said; "that reminds me--"
But the words died away on her lips in sudden fright. They were
standing on the level plateau in front of the cave, well removed from
the trees, and they could see distinctly on all sides, for the sun was
sinking in a cloudless sky and the air was preternaturally clear, being
free now from the tremulous haze of the hot hours.
Across the smooth expanse of sandy ground came the agonized shrieks of
a startled bird--a large bird, it would seem--winging its way towards
them with incredible swiftness, and uttering a succession of loud
full-voiced notes of alarm.
Yet the strange thing was that not a bird was to be seen. At that hour
the ordinary feathered inhabitants of the island were quietly nestling
among the branches preparatory to making a final selection of the
night's resting-place. None of them would stir unless actually
disturbed.
Iris drew near to the sailor. Involuntarily she caught his arm. He
stepped a half-pace in front of her to ward off any danger that might
be heralded by this new and uncanny phenomenon. Together they strained
their eyes in the direction of the approaching sound, but apparently
their sight was bewitched; as nothing whatever was visible.
"Oh, what is it?" wailed Iris, who now clung to Jenks in a state of
great apprehension.
The clucking noise came nearer, passed them within a yard, and was
already some distance away towards the reef when the sailor burst into
a hearty laugh, none the less genuine because of the relief it gave to
his bewildered senses.
Reassured, but still white with fear, Iris cried: "Do speak, please,
Mr. Jenks. What was it?"
"A beetle!" he managed to gasp.
"A beetle?"
"Yes, a small, insignificant-looking fellow, too--so small that I did
not see him until he was almost out of range. He has the loudest voice
for his size in the whole of creation. A man able to shout on the same
scale could easily make himself heard for twenty miles."
"Then I do not like such beetles; I always hated them, but this latest
variety is positively detestable. Such nasty things ought to be kept in
zoological gardens, and not turned loose. Moreover, my tea will be
boiled into spinach."
Nevertheless, the tea, though minus sugar or milk, was grateful enough
and particularly acceptable to the sailor, who entertained Iris with a
disquisition on the many virtues of that marvelous beverage. Curiously
enough, the lifting of the veil upon the man's earlier history made
these two much better friends. With more complete acquaintance there
was far less tendency towards certain passages which, under ordinary
conditions, could be construed as nothing else than downright
flirtation.
They made the pleasing discovery that they could both sing. There was
hardly an opera in vogue that one or other did not know sufficiently
well to be able to recall the chief musical numbers. Iris had a sweet
and sympathetic mezzo-soprano voice, Jenks an excellent baritone, and,
to the secret amazement of the girl, he rendered one or two well-known
Anglo-Indian barrack-room ditties with much humor.
This, then, was the mise-en-scéne.
Iris, seated in the broken saloon-chair, which the sailor had firmly
wedged into the sand for her accommodation, was attired in a
close-fitting costume selected from the small store of garments so
wisely preserved by Jenks. She wore a pair of clumsy men's boots
several sizes too large for her. Her hair was tied up in a gipsy knot
on the back of her head, and the light of a cheerful log fire danced in
her blue eyes.
Jenks, unshaven and ragged, squatted tailor wise near her. Close at
hand, on two sides, the shaggy walls of rock rose in solemn grandeur.
The neighboring trees, decked now in the sable livery of night, were
dimly outlined against the deep misty blue of sea and sky or wholly
merged in the shadow of the cliffs.
They lost themselves in the peaceful influences of the hour.
Shipwrecked, remote from human land, environed by dangers known or only
conjectured, two solitary beings on a tiny island, thrown haphazard
from the depths of the China Sea, this young couple, after passing
unscathed through perils unknown even to the writers of melodrama,
lifted up their voices in the sheer exuberance of good spirits and
abounding vitality.
The girl was specially attracted by "The Buffalo Battery," a rollicking
lyric known to all Anglo-India from Peshawur to Tuticorin. The air is
the familiar one of the "Hen Convention," and the opening verse runs in
this wise:
I love to hear the sepoy with his bold and martial tread,
And the thud of the galloping cavalry re-echoes through my head.
But sweeter far than any sound by mortal ever made
Is the tramp of the Buffalo Battery a-going to parade.
Chorus: For it's "Hainya! hainya! hainya! hainya!"
Twist their tails and go.
With a "Hâthi! hâthi! hâthi!" ele-phant and buffalo,
"Chow-chow, chow-chow, chow-chow, chow-chow,"
"Tèri ma!" "Chel-lo!"
Oh, that's the way they shout all day, and drive the buffalo.
Iris would not be satisfied until she understood the meaning of the
Hindustani phrases, mastered the nasal pronunciation of "hainya,"
and placed the artificial accent on phant and lo in the
second line of the chorus.
Jenks was concluding the last verse when there came, hurtling through
the air, the weird cries of the singing beetle, returning, perchance,
from successful foray on Palm-tree Rock. This second advent of the
insect put an end to the concert. Within a quarter of an hour they were
asleep.
Thenceforth, for ten days, they labored unceasingly, starting work at
daybreak and stopping only when the light failed, finding the long
hours of sunshine all too short for the manifold tasks demanded of
them, yet thankful that the night brought rest. The sailor made out a
programme to which he rigidly adhered. In the first place, he completed
the house, which had two compartments, an inner room in which Iris
slept, and an outer, which served as a shelter for their meals and
provided a bedroom for the man.
Then he constructed a gigantic sky-sign on Summit Rock, the small
cluster of boulders on top of the cliff. His chief difficulty was to
hoist into place the tall poles he needed, and for this purpose he had
to again visit Palm-tree Rock in order to secure the pulley. By
exercising much ingenuity in devising shear-legs, he at last succeeded
in lifting the masts into their allotted receptacles, where they were
firmly secured. Finally he was able to swing into air, high above the
tops of the neighboring trees, the loftiest of which he felled in order
to clear the view on all sides, the name of the ship Sirdar,
fashioned in six-foot letters nailed and spliced together in sections
and made from the timbers of that ill-fated vessel.
Meanwhile he taught Iris how to weave a net out of the strands of
unraveled cordage. With this, weighted by bullets, he contrived a
casting-net and caught a lot of small fish in the lagoon. At first they
were unable to decide which varieties were edible, until a happy
expedient occurred to the girl.
"The seabirds can tell us," she said. "Let us spread out our haul on
the sands and leave them. By observing those specimens seized by the
birds and those they reject we should not go far wrong."
Though her reasoning was not infallible it certainly proved to be a
reliable guide in this instance. Among the fish selected by the
feathered connoisseurs they hit upon two species which most resembled
whiting and haddock, and these turned out to be very palatable and
wholesome.
Jenks knew a good deal of botany, and enough about birds to
differentiate between carnivorous species and those fit for human food,
whilst the salt in their most fortunate supply of hams rendered their
meals almost epicurean. Think of it, ye dwellers in cities, content
with stale buns and leathery sandwiches when ye venture into the wilds
of a railway refreshment-room, these two castaways, marooned by queer
chance on a desert island, could sit down daily to a banquet of
vegetable soup, fish, a roast bird, ham boiled or fried, and a sago
pudding, the whole washed down by cool spring water, or, should the
need arise, a draught of the best champagne!
From the rusty rifles on the reef Jenks brought away the bayonets and
secured all the screws, bolts, and other small odds and ends which
might be serviceable. From the barrels he built a handy grate to
facilitate Iris's cooking operations, and a careful search each morning
amidst the ashes of any burnt wreckage accumulated a store of most
useful nails.
The pressing need for a safe yet accessible bathing place led him and
the girl to devote one afternoon to a complete survey of the
coast-line. By this time they had given names to all the chief
localities. The northerly promontory was naturally christened North
Cape; the western, Europa Point; the portion of the reef between their
habitation and Palm-tree Rock became Filey Brig; the other section
North-west Reef. The flat sandy passage across the island, containing
the cave, house, and well, was named Prospect Park; and the extensive
stretch of sand on the south-east, with its guard of broken reefs, was
at once dubbed Turtle Beach when Jenks discovered that an immense
number of green turtles were paying their spring visit to the island to
bury their eggs in the sand.
The two began their tour of inspection by passing the scene of the
first desperate struggle to escape from the clutch of the typhoon. Iris
would not be content until the sailor showed her the rock behind which
he placed her for shelter whilst he searched for water. For a moment
the recollection of their unfortunate companions on board ship brought
a lump into her throat and dimmed her eyes.
"I remember them in my prayers every night," she confided to him. "It
seems so unutterably sad that they should be lost, whilst we are alive
and happy."
The man distracted her attention by pointing out the embers of their
first fire. It was the only way to choke back the tumultuous feelings
that suddenly stormed his heart. Happy! Yes, he had never before known
such happiness. How long would it last? High up on the cliff swung the
signal to anxious searchers of the sea that here would be found the
survivors of the Sirdar. And then, when rescue came, when Miss
Deane became once more the daughter of a wealthy baronet, and he a
disgraced and a nameless outcast--! He set his teeth and savagely
struck at a full cup of the pitcher-plant which had so providentially
relieved their killing thirst.
"Oh, why did you do that?" pouted Iris. "Poor thing! it was a true
friend in need. I wish I could do something for it to make it the best
and leafiest plant of its kind on the island."
"Very well!" he answered; "you can gratify your wish. A tinful of fresh
water from the well, applied daily to its roots, will quickly achieve
that end."
The moroseness of his tone and manner surprised her. For once her quick
intuition failed to divine the source of his irritation.
"You give your advice ungraciously," she said, "but I will adopt it
nevertheless."
A harmless incident, a kindly and quite feminine resolve, yet big with
fate for both of them.
Jenks's unwonted ill-humor--for the passage of days had driven from his
face all its harshness, and from his tongue all its assumed
bitterness--created a passing cloud until the physical exertion of
scrambling over the rocks to round the North Cape restored their normal
relations.
A strong current raced by this point to the south-east, and tore away
the outlying spur of the headland to such an extent that the sailor was
almost inclined to choose the easier way through the trees. Yet he
persevered, and it may be confessed that the opportunities thus
afforded of grasping the girl's arm, of placing a steadying hand on her
shoulder, were dominant factors in determining his choice.
At last they reached the south side, and here they at once found
themselves in a delightfully secluded and tiny bay, sandy, tree-lined,
sheltered on three sides by cliffs and rocks.
"Oh," cried Iris, excitedly, "what a lovely spot! a perfect Smugglers'
Cove."
"Charming enough to look at," was the answering comment, "but open to
the sea. If you look at the smooth riband of water out there, you will
perceive a passage through the reef. A great place for sharks, Miss
Deane, but no place for bathers."
"Good gracious! I had forgotten the sharks. I suppose they must live,
horrid as they are, but I don't want them to dine on me."
The mention of such disagreeable adjuncts to life on the island no
longer terrified her. Thus do English new-comers to India pass the first
three months' residence in the country in momentary terror of snakes,
and the remaining thirty years in complete forgetfulness of them.
They passed on. Whilst traversing the coral-strewn south beach, with
its patches of white soft sand baking in the direct rays of the sun,
Jenks perceived traces of the turtle which swarmed in the neighboring
sea.
"Delicious eggs and turtle soup!" he announced when Iris asked him why
he was so intently studying certain marks on the sand, caused by the
great sea-tortoise during their nocturnal visits to the
breeding-ground.
"If they are green turtle," he continued, "we are in the lap of luxury.
They lard the alderman and inspire the poet. When a ship comes to our
assistance I will persuade the captain to freight the vessel with them
and make my fortune."
"I suppose, under the circumstances, you were not a rich man, Mr.
Jenks," said Iris, timidly.
"I possess a wealthy bachelor uncle, who made me his heir and allowed
me four hundred a year; so I was a sort of Croesus among Staff Corps
officers. When the smash came he disowned me by cable. By selling my
ponies and my other belongings I was able to walk out of my quarters
penniless but free from debt."
"And all through a deceitful woman!"
"Yes."
Iris peeped at him from under the brim of her sou'wester. He seemed to
be absurdly contented, so different was his tone in discussing a
necessarily painful topic to the attitude he adopted during the attack
on the pitcher-plant.
She was puzzled, but ventured a further step.
"Was she very bad to you, Mr. Jenks?"
He stopped and laughed--actually roared at the suggestion.
"Bad to me!" he repeated. "I had nothing to do with her. She was
humbugging her husband, not me. Fool that I was, I could not mind my
own business."
So Mrs. Costobell was not flirting with the man who suffered on her
account. It is a regrettable but true statement that Iris would
willingly have hugged Mrs. Costobell at that moment. She walked on air
during the next half-hour of golden silence, and Jenks did not remind
her that they were passing the gruesome Valley of Death.
Rounding Europa Point, the sailor's eyes were fixed on their immediate
surroundings, but Iris gazed dreamily ahead. Hence it was that she was
the first to cry in amazement--
"A boat! See, there! On the rocks!"
There was no mistake. A ship's boat was perched high and dry on the
north side of the cape. Even as they scrambled towards it Jenks
understood how it had come there.
When the Sirdar parted amidships the after section fell back
into the depths beyond the reef, and this boat must have broken loose
from its davits and been driven ashore here by the force of the western
current.
Was it intact? Could they escape? Was this ark stranded on the island
for their benefit? If it were seaworthy, whither should they steer--to
those islands whose blue outlines were visible on the horizon?
These and a hundred other questions coursed through his brain during
the race over the rocks, but all such wild speculations were promptly
settled when they reached the craft, for the keel and the whole of the
lower timbers were smashed into matchwood.
But there were stores on board. Jenks remembered that Captain Ross's
foresight had secured the provisioning of all the ship's boats soon
after the first wild rush to steady the vessel after the propeller was
lost. Masts, sails, oars, seats--all save two water-casks--had gone;
but Jenks, with eager hands, unfastened the lockers, and here he found
a good supply of tinned meats and biscuits. They had barely recovered
from the excitement of this find when the sailor noticed that behind
the rocks on which the craft was firmly lodged lay a small natural
basin full of salt water, replenished and freshened by the spray of
every gale, and completely shut off from all seaward access.
It was not more than four feet deep, beautifully carpeted with sand,
and secluded by rocks on all sides. Not the tiniest crab or fish was to
be seen. It provided an ideal bath.
Iris was overjoyed. She pointed towards their habitation.
"Mr. Jenks," she said, "I will be with you at tea-time."
He gathered all the tins he was able to carry and strode off, enjoining
her to fire her revolver if for the slightest reason she wanted
assistance, and giving a parting warning that if she delayed too long
he would come and shout to her.
"I wonder," said the girl to herself, watching his retreating figure,
"what he is afraid of. Surely by this time we have exhausted the
unpleasant surprises of the island. Anyhow, now for a splash!"
She was hardly in the water before she began to be afraid on account of
Jenks. Suppose anything happened to him whilst she was thoughtlessly
enjoying herself here. So strongly did the thought possess her that she
hurriedly dressed again and ran off to find him.
He was engaged in fastening a number of bayonets transversely to a long
piece of timber.
"What are you doing that for?" she asked.
"Why did you return so soon? Did anything alarm you?"
"I thought you might get into mischief," she confessed.
"No. On the other hand, I am trying to make trouble for any unwelcome
visitors," he replied. "This is a cheval de frise, which I
intend to set up in front of our cave in case we are compelled to
defend ourselves against an attack by savages. With this barring the
way they cannot rush the position."
She sighed. Rainbow Island was a wild spot after all. Did not thorns
and briers grow very close to the gates of Eden?
On the nineteenth day of their residence on the island the sailor
climbed, as was his invariable habit, to the Summit Rock whilst Iris
prepared breakfast. At this early hour the horizon was clearly cut as
the rim of a sapphire. He examined the whole arc of the sea with his
glasses, but not a sail was in sight. According to his calculations,
the growing anxiety as to the fate of the Sirdar must long ere
this have culminated in the dispatch from Hong Kong or Singapore of a
special search vessel, whilst British warships in the China Sea would
be warned to keep a close lookout for any traces of the steamer, to
visit all islands on their route, and to question fishermen whom they
encountered. So help might come any day, or it might be long deferred.